A View to the Future - Stefan Bajcetic

In the past couple of seasons, The View to the Future series has travelled to the English lower leagues as TLW have followed the journey of our various loanees. For the first time we get direct insight from a European club in this case how Stefan Bajcetic is progressing courtesy of the Red Bull Salzburg Supporters group.

Firstly Tobias Schmied  gives us a complete overview into the current club dynamic of Salzburg where it has been a campaign full of inconsistency and in turn how Bajcetic has adapted to this kind of situation. We also get a progress report on two individuals who have also had connections to the Reds in recent years in Bobby Clark and Pep Lijnders.

Then Anton Herbst follows on from Tobias with a succinct analysis about the Bajcetic temperament during in-game situations.

Tobias Schmied

Stefan Bajcetic has his qualities for sure. But i think i need to give some context surrounding the overall picture of RB Salzburg.

Bajcetic and Bobby Clark arrived when Salzburg was in pretty good shape. We had played nine competitive matches and won 7 of them and that includes two rounds of Champions League qualifiers. This was a great start, especially because our last season was a pain in the arse. It was the first season without a single title since 2012/13 and all competitive goals remained unachieved ultimately leading to the sacking of our coach Gerhard Struber.

The first international break arrived and our next game (after losing to our rival Rapid Wien before the break) would be Sparta Prague away in the Champions League. We had high hopes for this game. Our offence looked in shape, we played nice football and our struggles in defence seemed to become less and less.

It was at this point in time, when Pep Ljinders decided that it was the right time (without them having ever played a single minute in the Austrian Bundesliga) to put both Bajcetic and Clark  into the starting lineup

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And it was a completely different game as Sparta dominated. Salzburg suddenly played very insecurely and was completely off their game. The final score was a 3:0 defeat and Salzburg were never really in the game. This game would leave a mark. A 0:0 against a backmarker in WSG would follow, a brief respite was a 4:0 victory against an amateur team in the Austrian Cup  however it didn't bring back the good performances. An expected 2:0 win against Austria Wien (who are near bankruptcy since 2020 and therefore far away from theIr former selves) would follow.

However a reality check came in our first Champions League home fixture against French club Brest where we were convincingly thrashed 4-0. In the aftermath that result, the right back Amar Dedic was asked what went wrong after the international break, Dedic was cagey and said he knew the reason but he won't tell it right now.

However, it eventually leaked out that the arrival of the two players from Liverpool and them getting a place in the starting lineup against Sparta Prague while the players who won in the Champions League Qualifiers had to sit on the bench caused significant turmoil within the team.

The next game we played the team who won the title last season in Sturm Graz. And this time Salzburg would lose 5:0, meaning that within five days Salzburg conceded nine goals and didn't score a single goal - the worst week in club history.

Since then we have continued our inconsistency both in the league and in Europe where we are next to no chance to qualify for the CL playoffs but completely out of nowhere last week we produced a win against Feyanoord 3-1.

So now we are up to date, and in a nutshell what does all this mean?

Well the important part happened in the middle when i talked about the leaked team atmosphere problem. I think this was a very plausible explanation for the drop-off in form that we experienced in mid September. This means that the arrival of your former youth players led to one of the worst periods in Salzburg history and this leak led to heavy criticism of not only them but also Pep Ljinders.

Their ongoing performances weren't great, but they also weren't worse than the rest of the team. They were going along with the flow. Clark for me at least turned out to be much worse than Bajcetic. Clark seems more like a foreign body on the field rather than bringing the technical finesse we hoped we would get. Bajcetic on the other hand seems to get better every game. Even though the performances aren't perfect, at least he is starting to make a positive impact when he comes in.

Ultimately it's hard to say where both Clark and Bajcetic are at the moment. Whether their arrival ultimately caused distress within the team remains pure speculation, but it is certain that they didn't have a chance yet to prove themselves within a truly functioning Salzburg team. Therefore it is hard to say how good they really are.

Let's hope that the 3:1 win against Feyenoord brings a true upwards trend with it. In a few weeks - if Salzburg gets back in form anyway - we can look at those to players in a more fair way than we are able to at the moment. I wouldn't say Bajcetic is good enough to be a regular Premier League player just yet, but he is definitely starting to improve.

I also want to briefly address how Ljinders is going. The overall answer is mixed: His arrival led to a great start but this seems so far away in time. He is getting heavily criticised at the moment by a lot of fans but the managing director already said that his contract is not being discussed for now.

I think sacking him would be the wrong call as his successor would become the fourth Salzburg coach within two years. Sacking this many coaches in such a short period has never been a success story. I think that the problems this time are being caused by our sporting director Bernhard Seonbuchner who is responsible for squad planning.

He sold three centre backs without finding a replacement for them. This led to a very insecure defence - a problem that exists till this point of time. Also, our long time captain and team leader Andreas Ulmer retired at the end of last season as one of the only experienced players in the team. 

Seonbuchner wasn't bothered to find any player who could bring some form of experience on the table. This played a huge factor I think when Salzburg played against Prague. There was for many players their first real Champions League experience and they all seemed very nervous. Having an experienced player in the team would have helped them a lot.

Anton Herbst

Stefan Bajcetic has  adapted well to the Austrian Bundesliga and Red Bull Salzburg’s fast-paced style. His calmness on the ball and good understanding of the game are impressive. He works hard, helping both in defence and attack, and his recent goal shows his growing confidence and skill.

He could improve by getting stronger to handle bigger and more experienced players better and by making quicker decisions under pressure. These should get better with more experience.

Overall, the loan is helping Stefan a lot, and he is developing well. He is gaining valuable experience that will help him return to Liverpool as a more complete player.